1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to flow measurement systems for produced fluids from subterranean wells and in particular to a system for measuring the individual flow rates of a group of fluid components commonly found in the production fluid mixture.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, produced fluid from a subterranean well consist of water, oil, and gas components. In most instances, it is desirous to determine at the well head the flow rate of each component of the production fluid. One method of determining the flow rate of these components is to utilize a separator tank which is connected to receive the production fluid from the output of the well. The separator can be either of the three-phase or two-phase type. In the three-phase type, a gas-oil-water separation function is performed by the separator. In the two-phase type, the separation stage performs a gas-liquid separation, and a separate device is utilized to monitor the liquid flow and determine the percentage of oil and water in the liquid. Once the production fluid has been separated into its components, each component can be monitored to determine its individual flow rate.
One of the problems associated with the above-described separator method is that the separator tank typically must be designed to accommodate the full sampled production of the monitored well. This problem is especially acute in off-shore production wells, since a typical off-shore platform is designed to accomodate a 20,000 BPD separator tank. However, the production fluid flow rates of off-shore wells can range as high as 50,000 BPD. In such instances, it is not practicle to utilize the existing separator tank to obtain accurate flow rate measurements.